Titles: The community baton
A musically enchanted evening
A musicianship of Instruments
A kaleidoscope of instruments
The blaring lights of the Pierce College Performing Arts Theater shone bright over Brahma drive Saturday night.
While the rest of the campus was virtually dead, the Performing Arts parking lot was overflowing.
An array of shoe type and shoe size marched up the ramp and flowed into the theater, carrying their owners into a promising night of passionate performances on the Mainstage from the San Fernando Valley (SFV) Symphony Orchestra.
No one is too old or too young, too cool or too dorky, too dressy or not as the Pierce befitting diverse crowed settled down and filled up the theater, (save for a handful or two empty seats).
Excited voices full of anticipation filled the air with boisterous chatter.
And then, silence.
Until Maestro James Domine stepped into the stage lighting and was greeted with the first of many ear ringing applauses before speaking even a syllable.
“Music is a language of emotions. A maestro brings that to life for the audience,” he said later in an interview.
Perhaps that’s why Domine, adjunct instructor of music at Pierce, “has developed a dedicated cadre of symphony aficionados,” as written in the concert program.
Home court advantage might have encouraged the large turnout as well. According to their website, the Mainstage at Pierce is the orchestra’s principle venue.
Dressed in black formal ware, with the men in white button ups and bow ties, the orchestra settled in to place. A sight for sore ears as one big gold harp and several violins sat to the left, percussion and wind instruments along the back canvas screen, and the rest of the string instruments to the right.
After a quick show of patriotism with the national anthem, the tuned and disciplined orchestra flowed proficiently into Sandro Zaninovich’s, Variations for Orchestra.
The round of applause turned into a standing ovation as Zaninovich himself took to the stage to hug longtime friend Domine, praise the orchestra and address the audience.
“This is fantastic,” he said. “There is so many scary things out there and always still playing.”
The next standing “O” went to the award winning blushing violinist, Tamara Gyulnazarova, the star of the night in her glamorous red, halter-top, dress.
She stood in the front to the left of the bouncing and swaying maestro as he painted music in the sky with his baton.
While her torso, head, eyebrows, and lips arched, contorted, and bowed to the accents of her bow, not a whisper was shared by the hypnotized, unblinking eyes and ears of the guests.
“I felt like the audience was part of the performance,” said Gyulnazarova. “I try to become part of the music and not let the nerves take over. It always helps when the audience is nice”
With the supporting orchestra behind her, Gyulnazarova’s performance, of Khachaturian’s Violin Concerto in D minor, was followed by five bouquets of flowers and a heart strumming encore solo.
The room was awe struck.
“Tamara played brilliantly,” said Domine.
By the end of the night the crowd was enthused.
For audience member, Gary Fung, 26, assistant math instructor at Santa Monica College and friend of orchestra cello player, Glen Grab, this is his second but not his last time attending an SFV Symphony performance.
“Wow. That was pretty amazing,” he said.
Zaninovich was repeating the commonly quoted lyrics by the Beatles “all you need is love.”
“Good conductor, good musicians, they get envious results,” he said.
For more information visit and future events visit sfvsymphony.com